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Buying Life Insurance: What Kind and How Much?

Finding the middle ground between being “insurance poor” and unprotected requires assessing real needs and choosing products that are affordable. This article introduces different types of insurance products and the role that they can play in a personal financial plan.

Topics
Buying Life Insurance: What Kind and How Much?
Types of Insurance
How Much Insurance Do I Need?
Other Types of Life Insurance
Conclusion
1Buying Life Insurance
Conventional wisdom says that life insurance is sold, not purchased. In other words, some people are reluctant to discuss the importance of owning life insurance, and others are simply unaware of the need to have life insurance. Although many large companies provide life insurance as part of their benefits package, this coverage may be insufficient.

Who needs life insurance? If there are individuals who depend on you for financial support, or if you work at home providing your family with such services as child care, cooking, and cleaning, you need life insurance. Older couples also may need life insurance to protect a surviving spouse against the possibility of the couple’s retirement savings being depleted by unexpected medical expenses. And individuals with substantial assets may need life insurance to help reduce the effects of estate taxes or to transfer wealth to future generations.
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2Types of Insurance
Term insurance is the most basic, and generally least expensive, form of life insurance for people under age 50. A term policy is written for a specific period of time, typically 1 to 10 years, and may be renewable at the end of each term. Also, the premiums increase at the end of each term and can become prohibitively expensive for older individuals. A level term policy locks in the annual premium for periods of up to 30 years.

Declining Balance Term insurance, a variation on this theme, is often used as mortgage insurance since it can be written to match the amortization of your mortgage principal. While the premium stays constant over the term, the face value steadily declines. Once the mortgage is paid off, the insurance is no longer needed and the policy expires. Unlike many other policies, term insurance has no cash value. In this sense, it is “pure” insurance without any investment options. Benefits are paid only if you die during the policy’s term. After the term ends, your coverage expires unless you choose to renew the policy. When buying term insurance, you might look for a policy that is renewable up to age 70 and convertible to permanent insurance without a medical exam.

Whole Life combines permanent protection with a savings component. As long as you continue to pay the premiums, you are able to lock in coverage at a level premium rate. Part of that premium accrues as cash value. As the policy gains value, you may be able to borrow up to 90% of your policy’s cash value tax-free.

Universal Life is similar to whole life with the added benefit of potentially higher earnings on the savings component. Universal life policies are also highly flexible in regard to premiums and face value. Premiums can be increased, decreased or deferred, and cash values can be withdrawn. You may also have the option to change face values. Universal life policies typically offer a guaranteed return on cash value, usually at least 4%. You’ll receive an annual statement that details cash value, total protection, earnings, and fees.

Drawbacks to this type of insurance include higher fees and interest rate sensitivity. Universal policies include up-front fees as well as ongoing administrative fees totaling as high as 5% to 7% of your premiums. You may also find your premiums increasing when interest rates decline.

Variable Life generally offers fixed premiums and control over your policy’s cash value. Your cash value is invested in your choice of stock, bond, or money market funding options. Cash values and death benefits can rise and fall based on the performance of your investment choices. Although death benefits usually have a floor, there is no guarantee on cash values. Fees for these policies may be higher than for universal life, and investment options can be volatile. On the plus side, capital gains and other investment earnings accrue tax deferred as long as the funds remain invested in the insurance contract.

Universal Variable Life insurance is the most aggressive type of policy. Like variable life, you control your investment in mutual funds. However, there are no guarantees on universal variable policies beyond the original face value death benefit. These policies are probably best suited to affluent buyers who can afford the risks involved.

Key Terms and Definitions
Face Value — The original death benefit amount.
Convertibility — Option to convert from one type of policy (term) to another (whole life), usually without a physical examination.
Cash Value — The savings portion of a policy that can be borrowed against or cashed in.
Premiums — Monthly, quarterly, or yearly payments required to maintain coverage.
Beneficiary — The individual(s) or entity (e.g., trust) that is designated as benefit recipient.
Paid Up — A policy requiring no further premium payments due to prepayment or earnings.

3How Much Insurance Do I Need?
A popular approach to buying insurance is based on income replacement. In this approach, a formula of between five and ten times your annual salary is often used to calculate how much coverage you need. Another approach is to purchase insurance based on your individual needs and preferences. The first step is to determine your unique income replacement needs.

Currently, a large portion of your income goes to taxes (insurance benefits are generally income tax free) and to support your own lifestyle. Start off by determining your net earnings after taxes. Then add up all your personal expenses such as food, clothing, magazine subscriptions, club memberships, transportation expenses, etc. The remainder represents annual income that your insurance will need to replace. You’ll want a death benefit amount which, when invested, will provide income annually to cover this amount. Then, you should add to that the amounts needed to fund one-time expenses such as college tuition for your children or paying down mortgage or debt.

Income replacement for nonworking spouses is an important and often overlooked insurance need. Coverage should provide for your costs for day care, housekeeping, or nursing care. Add to this any net earnings from part-time employment.

Finally, estimate your own “final expenses” such as estate taxes, uninsured medical costs, and funeral costs.

4Other Types of Life Insurance
Survivorship life insurance (also referred to as last-to-die or second-to-die) is a unique type of contract that insures the lives of two people. It pays a death benefit upon the death of the second insured. Therefore, it is typically less expensive than two individual policies. Survivorship life is often used for estate planning, where it may be possible to potentially leverage today’s dollars — via insurance premiums — into a potentially significant death benefit that can be used to fund estate taxes, create wealth for future generations, or benefit a charity. These policies may be available if one insured is medically “uninsurable.”

First-to-die life insurance insures the life of at least two people and pays a benefit upon the death of the first insured. This policy is useful for covering a mortgage or other large debt obligation where there is more than one debtor. In addition, it can be an ideal tool for funding a buy-sell agreement within a closely held business.

5Conclusion
Life insurance is an important component of a sound financial plan. Buying insurance involves asking a variety of personal lifestyle and financial questions. If you are not already working with an insurance professional, you may want to consider the advice of a fee-for-service financial planner who can offer you an objective review of your insurance options. When you decide on what you want, there are many solid insurance companies to choose from. Consult your library or an independent insurance professional for companies with the highest ratings from the four ratings agencies: AM Best, Duff Phelps, Standard & Poor’s, and Moody’s.

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Life Insurance Fears Post the London Bombings Tragedy

Following on from the tube train and bus bomb attacks in London there was a move from several UK insurance companies to reassure victims that claims would be processed quickly and sympathetically . This need for reassurance came in light of concerns that many victims of the blasts would not be covered by their existing health and life insurance cover. This would mean that families of the bombing victims could not only lose a relative, but also suffer financial hardship as life insurance companies refuse to pay out on policies.

Standard Life, Axa-PPP and Norwich Union all announced that policy holders would be covered for events on the 7th July. Standard Life said that the company was not looking to “cause more distress” to victims and their families.

Reuters have been told that other firms such as Churchill, Endsleigh and Direct Line are likely to be sympathetic when dealing with people who have been injured or whose holidays have been disrupted, however these insurers have fallen short of announcing complete cover.

Churchill said that it would, “provide cancellation and personal accident cover if customers are physically injured on the way to their holiday departure in addition, if any of our customers are away on holiday and hear of injury or death to a close relative, we will facilitate their return home missed departures due to travel delay in central London will also be treated sympathetically. This is despite Churchill including acts of terrorism exclusions into their policies. This means that policies will generally not pay-out if losses are sustained due to any terrorist activities. This represents one of several general exclusion clauses which are often regularly added to many policies and which prevent payout for particular potentially costly situations for the insurers.

The terrorism exclusion is still regularly included in policies despite the introduction in 1993 of the Terrorism Insurance Program which provides reinsurance cover to the majority of U.K. insurers, is expected to absorb a large proportion of the insurance claims resulting from the 7th July attacks. Under the program, the insurance industry as a whole is liable for 75 million pounds per terrorist “event”, with losses above that covered by a mutual reinsurance pool. Should the costs rise above the funds available through the pool, then the UK Treasury will step in to cover the remaining costs.

Another group recently highlighted who may fall foul of this exclusion is the emergency services workers. Unison representatives have warned that this exclusion clause could leave emergency workers and their families high and dry if they are injured or killed. This would prove particularly disastrous for families with personal insurance policies which cover accidents and that also offer mortgage protection, as the potential loss of income due to injury combined with the lack of mortgage cover resulting from the exclusion, could mean those workers families affected may experience difficulties maintaining their future mortgage payments.

Some fire crews in Somerset have already threatened to go on strike due to claims that they may not be insured if they are injured whilst dealing with a terrorist attack. This action has since been called off, but many emergency workers are still justifiably worried, not only for their own safety, but also their families should anything happen to them whilst responding to a terrible emergency such as has already been seen in London.

Unison pointed out that its own insurance policy which is offered to members provided full cover and called for other insurers to do the same.

Sam Oestreicher of Unison said, “We are asking all insurance companies to look at their policies and if they have such exclusion clauses to drop them”.

The Association of British Insurers has also tried to reassure emergency workers and other customers saying, most types of insurance are readily available without terrorism exclusions The major personal types of insurance, such as life, household and comprehensive motor insurance provide cover for the effects of a terrorist incident as a standard feature of the policy.”

Today the plethora of online comparison sites such as Moneynet or Moneyfacts can search all the insurance policies available and provide guides to help consumers make decisions, however the need for people to check with providers to ensure they are not left unprotected has never been more evident.

The insurance industry itself has admitted that some policies do have exclusion clauses and are also advising policyholders to study the small print or contact their insurance company or broker to determine their cover levels.

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